The Arts Council of Ireland (An Chomhairle Ealalíon) incorrectly issued grant letters to 141 applicants earlier this week following an administrative error.
The grant in question, Next Generation Artists Award, offers up to €25,000 funding to artists across all disciplines at early but pivotal stages of their careers to a total of 20 artists.
Following the error, the arts council sent an email to those affected stating: “Please accept our apologies, an administrative error which resulted in an incorrect decision email being sent to you on our recent Next Generation application. Please disregard this email, the correct email will be sent after 4.30pm today”.
A statement issued online followed: “Our mistake has understandably caused upset and disappointment and, for this, we are truly sorry,” the arts council said.
“We have now put in place additional checks for the issue of decision letters to prevent a repeat of this error.”
Those affected have shared their distress online. Writer and poet Trudie Gorman, who has since arranged two gatherings in Dublin for artists affected, wrote: “I had been awarded €25k through the Next Gen award. They then emailed to say 'ignore that, it was an error.' I am beyond heartbroken”.
Praxis Union, the artist’s union of Ireland, says the level of distress caused “highlights the financial precarity we face”.
“As artists we know arts council awards like this are a primary source of income. We can only imagine the sense of relief these artists felt when they thought they were funded.
The union’s comments were echoed by National Campaign for the Arts Ireland, who said that Irish artists’ average earnings have been on the decline over the last year.
“We offer our heartfelt solidarity to the artists involved and we hope that due support is provided to them,” the campaign group wrote on Twitter.
“While this was a human error, it has caused widespread disruption. We hope that robust safeguards are put in place to prevent this error being repeated.”